


Pumped up Kicks (You better run)

by jongnugget



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bullying, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Mental Health Issues, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:50:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jongnugget/pseuds/jongnugget
Summary: He's coming for you, yeah he's coming for you.





	Pumped up Kicks (You better run)

**Author's Note:**

> It's really my first time writing a drabble and also my first time trying to write a fic in this style, so please bear with me ^^

Baekhyun had always been a bit odd.

He never quite blended in, not even when his life wasn’t a complete mess.

He was always the outcast. The kid who was sitting alone during lunch time because he didn’t have a clique. The silent one.

It never bothered him.

Until his life took a turn that changed just about everything. When his mother left and his father changed, when people started looking at him and whispering, when the other kids would start pointing out just how weird he was.

It started bothering him then.

* * *

 _Robert's got a quick hand_  
_He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan_  
_He's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth he's a cowboy kid_

* * *

When he smoked his first cigarette, he choked on the smoke and his throat hurt. He absolutely hated it.

But he pushed through. He ended all of it, although his chest was hurting and his mouth felt dry. Everyone was doing it. Smoking. Maybe if he did it too, then they wouldn’t think he was that different.

Maybe they’d stop making fun of him.

Of him and his worn out clothes, because there was no one in his home anymore who cared whether he was dressed properly or not.

Of him and his lack of friends, because even those who have before simply ignored him were now giving him weird looks whenever he was passing by them in the hallways with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled down low to hide his face.

He thought it would help so he made sure to always have a pack with himself, wherever he went. He was persistent.

The hatred for the dark smoke and the burning sensation on his lips slowly disappeared and instead it turned into an obsession. He felt like something was missing if he didn’t have a cigarette handing from the corner of his mouth.

And with the obsession came also the realization that the little rolled up piece of slow death between his lips hadn’t changed anything.

The people were still giving him weird looks. The kids were still throwing nasty remarks at him.

All Baekhyun wanted was to fit in.

But as he was leaning against the wall in the shades, the cigarette between his fingers, he could only look over to the cool kids and their brand new cars. To the smart kids who would someday undoubtedly succeed in life. Or the talented kids with all their achievements and goals.

He was none of that.

He could only look from far away and think to himself that maybe they were right. He was different. He really didn’t fit in anywhere.

Maybe he really was weird.

His eyes lazily moved back to the front of the school where a big group of people were being loud. Laughing. Having fun.

Baekhyun faintly wondered what that felt like. Fun.

He saw Kai holding a petite girl in his hands, his girlfriend. They were leaning against his shining Chevy. Around them were all those other kids Baekhyun dreaded seeing in the hallways.

He remembered a dark night. When he had run away from home, and hadn’t known where to go. He had ended up running to the school. He remembered seeing the tan boy making out with another guy in a dark alley behind the campus. The same boy with the big owl eyes who was standing in their circle laughing along with all the other kids.

No one seemed to notice them exchanging brief looks and small smirks. No one but Baekhyun.

He wondered for a brief moment what would happen if he told the others. But before he could even dwell on it, he let out a quiet scoff.

He couldn’t do that. Of course he couldn’t.

No one would believe him. Ever.

They’d call him a liar. A faggot.

They’d beat him up.

Baekhyun finally looked away. The sight was torturous.

He just pulled another cigarette from the box and lit it up.

* * *

 _Yeah found a six shooter gun_  
_In his dad's closet hidden oh in a box of fun things, I don't even know what_  
_But he's coming for you, yeah he's coming for you_

* * *

It was a dark night. A dark, dark night and he was alone in his house.

He didn’t know where his father was. He didn’t care.

It was better when he wasn’t at home.

But it was a dark night and Baekhyun was sitting curled up on the couch, trying to stop his thoughts from constantly flying to the emptiness in his stomach.

Hungry. He was hungry. So hungry.

The only thing in the kitchen he could find were just countless bottles of alcohol. Cans of beer.

He was on the verge of crying. But if he started crying, then he’d know he’d completely lost. Against the world, against himself.

Instead, he stood up shakily from the couch and looked around frantically. Trying to find something. Anything.

Money. He needed money to buy food.

He did the one thing he’d never thought he’d ever do.

He walked into his father’s bedroom. The place smelled. The stench of alcohol and dirty clothes etched deep into the sheets and pillows.

He was looking through every single nook and cranny of the room. Under the bed. In the bedside table. And he didn’t find anything.

Of course, every single coin was spent on cheap and nasty alcohol.

He refused to let the tears in his eyes escape. He was blinking quickly, and looking more vigorously.

There was a box on the bottom of the closet. He ducked down and pulled the lid off. Maybe his father had stashed away some money, extra cash for his late nights out in all the bars of the city.

But it wasn’t money that his father had been hiding in that closet.

It was a gun. A revolver.

Baekhyun trembled, as he dropped the lid back on the box and hurried to close the wardrobe, almost running out of the room.

* * *

 _All the other kids with the pumped up kicks_  
_You'd better run, better run, out run my gun_  
_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks_  
_You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet_

* * *

Time was flying and nothing was changing.

He’d consider himself lucky when there was food in the house. He wondered when in his life exactly he’d started seeing that as a miracle.

The kids at school hadn’t changed either. If anything, their remarks and comments only turned nastier with time. Pointing out how the clothes were hanging loosely around his body. How his shoes were tearing. How they didn’t even know what his face normally looked like.

They kept calling him a freak instead of reaching out to help.

And Baekhyun couldn’t stop himself from imagining. Every day.

What it would be like to not be abused ever again. What it would be like to not be mocked.

What it would be like if his father was gone. If the kids who made fun of him were gone. If those who never helped him were gone.  

Gone.

He’d return home from school and sit in front of his father’s closet, stare at the little gun hidden in the box and imagine. Sometimes he would pick it up and look at it, as images were running in his mind.

He blinked quickly when he heard the sound of the truck’s tires pulling up in the driveway and he was dragged out of his daydreams. He hurried to throw the gun back in the box and to run away from the room.

The moment he was back in his own room he would realize just how fucked up he was.

How scared of his own thoughts he was.

* * *

 _Daddy works a long day_  
_He be coming home late, he's coming home late_  
_And he's bringing me a surprise_  
_'Cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice_

* * *

It felt like time was mocking him. Because it was either passing way too quickly with nothing changing and the darkness within him only building up or it was just too slow, the suffering of every day feeling prolonged and excruciating.

It was far past midnight when he heard the truck’s engine and when he breathed out. He hurried to put out the cigarette and rush to his room.

It was later than usual today. His father was usually back by midnight.

Coming back later than that meant even more drinks. Even more trouble.

Baekhyun’s entire body trembled when he heard the angry, slurred voice of his father shouting out his name, calling him.

He rested his head against the door, closing his eyes and trying to regulate his breathing. Trying to wake up from a nightmare.

But when his father’s shout pierced through the quietness of the house, Baekhyun only let out a ragged breath.

He knew better than to stay in his room. He knew it would only be worse if he didn’t go now.

With nothing but fear in his heart, he opened the door and slowly started bracing himself for the pain to come.

* * *

It was hours later, when the sun’s first rays were starting to paint the morning sky a beautiful hue of orange, when Baekhyun’s stomach angrily reminded him that he hadn’t eaten anything.

He clenched his teeth, before shakily standing up from his bed and opening the door of his room quietly. He walked slowly, past the living room where his father was passed out on the couch from drinking too much.

Baekhyun looked away from him and only made a beeline for the kitchen, as silently as possible.

He walked over to the fridge and looked for something. Anything, really.

For some forgotten leftovers, for some crackers.

The only thing he found was a bag of frozen peas.

He pulled it out from the freezer and stared at it for a few long seconds.

Then he stumbled back to tiredly sit on the old wooden chair.

He brought the bag of peas up to his face.

The icy touch on his burning flesh made him hiss in pain.

* * *

 _I've waited for a long time_  
_Yeah the slight of my hand is now a quick pull trigger_  
_I reason with my cigarette_  
_And say your hair's on fire, you must have lost your wits, yeah_

* * *

It had been a quiet day and for a change his father hadn’t been that drunk when he woke up. He had barked out his name, handed him a bill and ordered him to go buy food from the supermarket.

But when the cart was full and Baekhyun kept walking around the aisles, pushing the cart, his eyes fell on the cosmetics aisle. On all the colorful boxes.

He had seen some of the kids show up at school sometimes looking different.

Silver hair, purple hair. Their peers only seemed to find it entertaining. They’d swarm around their friends and muse at the change.

He was standing hesitantly in front of them. Looking around all the displayed colors. Then he threw a hesitant look towards the shopping cart and the little snacks he had gotten for himself. He ran a tongue over his dry lips, before reaching out and taking them all out of the cart. Instead, he pulled a little box of hair dye.

A little box of hair dye and a concealer.  

* * *

Baekhyun should have stopped hoping for anything to ever help at this point.

He did attract attention to himself, yes. Not in the way he had been expecting, though.

_“His hair’s on fire.”, “He looks like a torch.”, “What a loser.”_

He escaped the last class and instead hid behind the buildings in the shade of the trees.

The only comfort he could find out here was in the cigarettes he pulled out of his bag.

The only comfort he could find at home was just staring at that revolver in the closet and imagining.

He threw his head back, almost banging it against the red bricks of the school. Mentally cursing at himself for not predicting this.

He should have known.  Black or red hair, he was still the odd one. The weirdo.

He caught someone looking at him and he almost glared up.

It was a tall boy with pink hair, one of those guys that were always laughing. He had seen him around with Kai before. With Sehun and the other cool kids. He was always smiling.

Not now, though. He was just staring at Baekhyun with a blank expression.

And Baekhyun? He felt exposed. Pressed, when the boy didn’t look away even when their eyes met for a mere moment. Mocked once again.

He took a long drag from his cigarette, that burned his insides. Then he clutched the strap of his bag tightly, before turning around and running away.

* * *

 _All the other kids with the pumped up kicks_  
_You'd better run, better run, out run my gun_  
_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks_  
_You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet_

* * *

It was playing like a movie in his head, every time he imagined.

He imagined his father for once being the one who was trying to hide in the corner. The one who was trying to speak and reason, when Baekhyun raised his trembling hands, holding the revolver tightly.

He imagined those cool kids scared, looking up to him with eyes widened in horror as he didn’t run away after their nasty remarks. As he pulled the gun out of his belt instead.

* * *

_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks  
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun_

* * *

He could imagine them standing quietly there for once. He could hear them apologizing to him.

The sweetest words he had been craving so much.

The sweetest words he had been waiting for so long.

The words that didn’t matter anymore. Not at this point.

He was broken. Broken, bruised, hurt. Beyond repair.

He breathed out from the wooden floor of his father’s bedroom.

The gun felt heavy in his arms.  

* * *

_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks  
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet_

* * *

Time was still flying and the pit Baekhyun was falling in only seemed to get deeper and deeper, the light at the top barely visible.

Those little images kept replaying in his mind all the time. When he was at home. When he was at school. When he was walking. When he was eating barely found food. When he was showering.

When he was covering the bruises on his face with the concealer. When he was brushing the patchy red locks of hair.

When he was feeling the burn on his lips whenever he finished yet another cigarette.

* * *

_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks_

* * *

Kai was holding up his hands. He was speaking, but Baekhyun couldn’t hear a single word. The boy with the big owl eyes was standing behind him, trying to pull him down.

The tall guy with the pink hair was pulling some people down to the ground.

Some were trying to hide under the lunch tables.

He could see them all.

Hiding, surrendering. He saw some of them running.

Running away, trying to escape.

His finger moved and he pulled the trigger.

The sound was deafening.

* * *

_You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet_

* * *

Only light is faster than a bullet.

But in Baekhyun’s world there was no light left.

Only the fire at the tip of his cigarette and the sweet sounds of screams that weren’t his.

In this world, nothing was faster than a bullet.

Not his father. Not those kids.

**Author's Note:**

> I…literally don’t even know what I just wrote.  
> I just woke up, had this idea and decided to write it.
> 
> Why Baekhyun, you may wonder? Honestly, I don’t know. He just popped up in my mind when I imagined everything with his red mullet and all.
> 
> For those of you who may be wondering, this entire song is supposedly about mental illness and written from the perspective of a troubled and delusional youth with homicidal thoughts. I just took that and made my own version of it with this story.   
> So taking that into consideration, you can draw your own conclusions about this fic. Whether everyone really despised him as much as he thought or if he was just imagining; just too damaged to recognize anything else, whether he really snapped in the end and killed them or if he was just imagining, it's your own choice ^^
> 
> In any case, I hope you liked this. Please leave a comment, let me know what you thought~


End file.
